“It’s our policy that it’s up to individual users to determine their own document retention. The University doesn’t have a set schedule.”

That's right. Anyone employed by the University can hold onto public records (like internal emails) for whatever time period they deem personally appropriate, whether it's one day… or one year… or "aging off" documents the moment they're requested.

This lack of a set schedule runs contrary to state law.

State law stipulates that public records be kept and disposed of in accordance with a formal schedule, which requires that correspondence be retained for two years after the date of its creation before it can be destroyed.

This retention free-for-all explains why the Michigan Daily hasn't had much success in obtaining documents from the school this year during its attempts to investigate the athletic director's forced resignation and the expulsion of a football player over violations of the school's sexual misconduct policies.

The University's spokesman claims the school is exempt from state law because it's not a state agency. But the law says otherwise.

While the penal code does not explicitly define the University as an “office or agency of the state of Michigan,” the Freedom of Information Act does, stating: “All state agencies, county and other local governments, school boards … and public colleges and universities are covered.”

In fact, as the Michigan Daily points out, the University itself has made the same claim spokesman Rick Fitzgerald is now denying.

The University has argued in court multiple times that it is a state agency, including the 1994 case of Moore v. University of Michigan, regarding the firing of a whistleblower in the school’s information technology department. The case centered on “whether (the University) can be characterized as an arm or alter ego of the state,” according to the case brief. The University prevailed in court on the back of an argument that it is “an extension of the State.”

Inquiries sent to other local colleges show that Michigan University is an anomaly in its refusal to adhere to the state's FOIA law. The school's "do what thou wilt" retention policy may result in it being fined. State law provides for a $500 fine plus compensatory damages for "arbitrary and capricious violations" of the Act, as well as an additional $1,000 fine and/or two-year prison sentence if it can be proven that University employees willfully destroyed records. Unfortunately, for a university of its size and wealth, these fines clearly aren't much of a deterrent.

Oakley, Mi. is barely a town at 300 people, only one streetlight and, until recently, one police officer. The one cop was good at his job, reports Vocativ's M.L. Nestel, until he was forced to step down after getting caught stalking a teenage girl.

A new chief, Robert Reznick, was installed. He immediately began hiring new officers. The one officer that had policed the town for several years without incident was replaced with twelve full-time officers. Then Reznick went further, allowing civilians to buy their way onto the police force.

Here's how the chief's program works: The wanna-be officers pay about about $1,200 for a uniform, bullet-proof vest and gun, and some make additional donations to the police department. In return, they get a police badge and the right to carry their gun almost anywhere in the state, including places that people with normal gun permits can't, like casinos, bars, stadiums and daycare centers.

This proved to be very popular, even pulling in a couple of non-resident NFL players as auxiliary officers. Needless to say, running a pay-to-play police force tends to generate problems. Complaints were raised about the heightened police presence at a local event that had run peaceably (if rather rowdily) for years.

"We have successfully held this event in its current location, in this village for 13 years without a single major incident. In past years, the one Oakley Police officer provided the necessary presence for the entire weekend without a problem. This year, we were adorned with 15 police officers, uniformed and undercover, two police cars, a golf cart and a K-9 unit. The view down Main Street looked as if the village had been locked down from some deadly viral outbreak and at any moment the National Guard would be rolling in with personnel carriers to escort us all into a containment zone."

Sutter went on to claim that the number of officers negatively affected participants' perception of event's safety and was causing harm to both his event and the businesses supported by the influx of non-residents.

Brandi Bitterman, a member of the family that owns the Oakley's Family Tavern, claimed her fiance was wrongfully arrested and harassed during bike weekend. The man, who was arrested at the Family Tavern, refused to provide his name.

The police force was suspended due to its lack of insurance coverage. It later put itself back to work -- without a council vote -- after purchasing $500,000 in coverage from a company willing to overlook numerous ongoing lawsuits against the department, as well as its large number of honorary gun toters.

Since that initial shutdown failed to take, the stakes were raised by a county court, which ordered the disbandment of Reznick's ad hoc police force. It also ordered the return of all equipment in use by the numerous auxiliary officers. Chief Reznick refused to comply with the order, resulting in many items being forcibly retrieved by outside law enforcement agencies.

Now, with several news agencies looking to obtain the names of the auxiliary officers "employed" by Reznick, an unlikely person has stepped in to block the release of this information.

Herschel Fink, a longtime First Amendment defender who has represented several Detroit area TV networks (along with some national outlets), is the man standing between the media (and the plaintiff of a lawsuit against Chief Reznick) and the list of auxiliary officers.

In the undated email, Fink cited an Oct. 13 bulletin by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security that ISIS had called for attacks against law enforcement and government workers.

"To release identifying information about law enforcement personnel under such circumstances would not only result in damages against the Village, and everyone involved in such a release, it would likely be considered as having been done with malice, opening the door to punitive damages," wrote Fink.

Another guy who bought himself a badge and gun from Reznick is a white-shoe lawyer named Herschel Fink, who serves as the editorial counsel for The Detroit Free Press. Calls made to Fink's office weren't returned.

Fink is for free speech except when his position as a amateur cop is threatened. That's sickening and hopefully the Detroit Free Press will reconsider his employment in light of this hypocrisy.

Despite all the indications that Reznick's inflated police force is a bad idea for Oakley and its residents, the town may have no choice in the matter. Circuit Judge Robert Kaczmarek issued an injunction suspending the force until after last Tuesday's election. That election saw four candidates backed by the auxiliary police force elected, giving them a majority on the seven-member city council.

If you're looking for the nadir of terrorism-based rationalizing, this legal battle over the names of those "employed" in Reznick's rent-a-badge scheme is very likely it. No terrorist group would care about a loose collection of imitation cops who chipped in at least $1,200 each in exchange for some extra rights. If anything, they'd point to it as evidence of American corruption and hypocrisy -- and they'd be right to do so.

from the nice-to-see dept

Over the last few weeks we've seen a number of politicians come out on one side or another concerning the FCC's net neutrality plans, but most of them were pretty much expected. It actually was nice to see some net neutrality supporters be quite explicit in their support for Title II reclassification (like Senator Chuck Schumer), but beyond that there weren't too many surprises. That's why it was actually great to see Rep. Gary Peters, who is currently running for the Senate in Michigan, come out in favor of net neutrality, warning of the harm that could be caused by the fast lanes and slow lanes as allowed by the current FCC proposal.

"If large corporations can pay more for faster service for their content, this effectively creates a 'slow lane' for everyone else."

This is notable, because four years ago, Peters was actually one of the group of Representatives who actively opposed strong net neutrality rules by the FCC. It appears that four years later he's changed his mind. In his new statement, he makes it clear that he now realizes how many entrepreneurs and innovators rely on an open internet:

"Startups and small businesses are the engines of job creation and economic growth in Michigan, and they rely on open access to the Internet to stay competitive. I have serious concerns that allowing large, established corporations to purchase faster services puts these startups and small businesses at a disadvantage and stifles innovation."

That's a far cry from the letter Peters signed four years ago, which was entirely focused on the question of how these rules might upset the big broadband access providers. It's good to see Peters has realized that the future is in innovative startups, not in protecting big cable and telco oligopolies.

from the 'we-haven't-discussed-it-because-9/11' dept

More news has surfaced of cell tower spoofers being deployed without the public's knowledge. This time it's the Oakland County (Michigan) Sheriff's Department rolling out an upgraded Stingray device from Harris Manufacturing, known as "Hailstorm." The sad thing here is that the opportunity for public input presented itself pre-rollout but local politicians slept on the issue.

Oakland County commissioners asked no questions last March before unanimously approving a cellphone tracking device so powerful it was used by the military to fight terrorists.

Now, though, some privacy advocates question why one of the safest counties in Michigan needs the super-secretive Hailstorm device that is believed to be able to collect large amounts of cellphone data, including the locations of users, by masquerading as a cell tower.

“I don’t like not knowing what it’s capable of,” said county Commissioner Jim Runestad, R-White Lake Township, who has met in recent weeks with sheriff’s officials about his concerns.

Harris, as it has been noted, heads off criticism and the impertinent questions of the public by tying up law enforcement officials with restrictive non-disclosure agreements. These NDAs have proven handy for some LEOs -- particularly in Florida where officials made the case that the restrictions of the contract prevented them from seeking warrants before using the cell tower spoofer.

State politicians are now attempting to have a belated discussion of the technology's privacy implications, thanks in part to prompting by local journalists. The Michigan House Oversight Committee brought in Christopher Soghoian, policy analyst from the ACLU and former magistrate judge Brian Owsley. (Recording embedded below.)

Soghoian's concerns aren't simply about the privacy implications or the secrecy Harris has shrouded its technology in, but also the fact that there's no way to track misuse of the equipment.

What’s particularly worrisome is there is no telltale sign they’ve been used, Soghoian said: “It doesn’t leave a trace. No one would ever catch you.” That means no one would know if police misused the device or activated it without a warrant, Soghoian said.

Owsley, in his statement to the committee, noted that the first time discussion of this technology occurred in his courtroom, it was presented by law enforcement as something along the lines of a pen register. As Owsley points, all it takes in most cases to get a pen register granted is a pulse. As long as both the magistrate judge and the law enforcement official are technically alive, the pen register will be signed off on.

That law enforcement portrayed cell tower spoofing in this fashion is no surprise, since it gives them the greatest chance of securing permission to deploy it. (The NSA/FBI did the same thing in order to push through its bulk phone metadata program.) Unlike regular pen registers, however, Stingrays/Hailstorms are deployed in cases where law enforcement may not even have a known phone number. Instead, they may be working off a list of numbers potentially tied to the subject of their investigation, or are just waiting for communications to originate from a certain location.

Now that the technology is finally being questioned, representatives of the Oakland County Sheriff's Department are stepping up to defend their acquisition.

Undersheriff Michael McCabe said, “Hailstorm helps us capture fugitives from the law, people wanted for murder and rape” and can be used only with a search warrant. He said the federal Homeland Security Act bars him from discussing Hailstorm, but he elaborated at length about what it doesn’t do.

Interestingly, McCabe cites the Homeland Security Act as prohibiting discussion, rather than the manufacturer's restrictive NDA. The county also cited "homeland security" terminology in its refusal to release requested documents about the Hailstorm device.

The county denied The News’ Freedom of Information Act request, saying the information is protected by anti-terror laws and includes “investigating records compiled for law enforcement purposes that would disclose law enforcement investigative techniques or procedures.”

Law enforcement officials in one of the safest counties in Michigan are conjuring up terrorism as an excuse for deploying a questionable device, as well as to avoid having to answer any tough questions about its capabilities or usage.

Undersheriff McCabe claims the device is used to go after "people wanted for murder and rape," while simultaneously claiming the DHS won't allow the department to talk about its non-terrorist-related use. He also claims it's not used without a warrant, a statement the county itself isn't allowing anyone to verify. (Among the documents requested were returned warrants on closed cases.) The Sheriff's Department refuses to discuss the technology (other than to highlight how great it is at catching bad guys) or back up its statements with documentation and somehow expects the public to be just fine with all of this. With state politicians now looking into its Hailstorm usage, the normal combination of obfuscation and bluster likely won't keep these details secret for much longer.

from the because-punishing-fakes-keeps-real-guns-out-of-schools dept

Zero tolerance weapons policies at schools continue to be ridiculous. Between Pop Tarts bitten into gun-like shapes and drawings of guns being treated as severely as the real thing, schools enforcing these policies (forced on them by the government's decision to tie funding to weapons policies) have slid into cartoonish parody of discipline.

Two Doyle-Ryder Elementary School students were arrested Wednesday after a “toy gun” was found at the school.

The two male students were arrested on disorderly conduct charges about 8:45 a.m., Feb. 5, at the school at 1040 N. Saginaw St., according to a Flint police report. The boys were released to their parents.

Leyton says whether it's a real gun or a toy gun - this is still a serious matter.

"It's always your concern that a young person can get his hands on a real gun and bring it to school. There is no reason to bring a gun to school. Bringing a gun, even if it's a toy gun, to school causes all sorts of chaos and I think these youngsters need to be brought into the courthouse and we need to get their attention so that's what we're going to do," he said.

Because fake guns are real guns in the eyes of the school and the county prosecutor. And any child that can't see the difference needs to have it "brought to their attention" via criminal charges.

No one involved in this incident seems to know exactly what sort of gun was being wielded by the students. Police called it a "toy gun." Superintendent Larry Watkins "believed" it was a BB gun. Prosecutor David Leyton simply described the gun as "orange and plastic." He also noted it was "inoperable."

Here's where the story diverges a bit from the usual "boys will be boys and play with toy guns and schools will overreact" narrative. According to the prosecutor, this is why the "gun" ended up at school.

Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton says one of the boys had a dispute with a teacher and thought he would teach the teacher a lesson.

I wonder if Leyton will see any irony in that statement as he prepares to teach these two students a lesson. If this is true, I don't necessarily have a problem with Leyton filing charges to address the threatening behavior (and not the supposed "gun"), but he should understand that he's perpetuating this mindset by doing so. So many people think the only way to reach people is to threaten them -- whether it's the boys with their "gun" or Leyton's hauling them to court.

Behind this slightly-more-ominous-than-most narrative lies the same old zero-tolerance thinking. (Note how much of each story is devoted to discussion of the "gun," as compared to a discussion of the students' motivation.) A gun is gun, even if it's plastic, orange and inoperable. An inoperable weapon can look exactly like an operable one, but an orange plastic gun doesn't look like a weapon -- it looks like a toy. Which is what it is. Yes, the chance that a student could get ahold of real weapon should be a concern, but overreacting to fake guns doesn't somehow prevent the worst case scenarios from ever happening. It just makes life more difficult for students who actually comprehend the difference between the fake guns and real guns.

from the you-can-only-take-my-money-for-so-long,-before-you-take-it-all! dept

We've written before about cities and states luring Hollywood studios with multimillion dollar subsidies in the hopes of giving their local economies a bit of a bump. In nearly every case, this has been a money loser for the locale involved. A 2010 Tax Foundation study found that most states were lucky to see $0.20 in revenue from every dollar handed out. And yet, this surefire money loser remains incredibly popular.

Michigan has 4.5 million individual taxpayers, and the state gave the film studio $39.7 million to shoot the movie in Pontiac. That works out to a subsidy of $8.82 per taxpayer while average ticket prices nationwide are $7.96.

The subsidy was granted in 2010 when the program refunded up to 42 percent of Michigan expenses to film makers — essentially a check from the treasury to Hollywood studios. The program expired, but the Legislature, dominated by Republicans, overwhelmingly decided to keep it around.

As the article points out, the studio basically received paid admission from every taxpayer in the state. But that $40 million was apparently just a "good start," because the state soon found the studio knocking at its door again, cap in hand.

As part of the financing process, the filmmakers wanted to borrow about about $18 million in municipal bonds. In order order to do that, they needed a backer. So the state stepped in, and agreed to use its state worker pension funds as a guarantee. "If the investors failed to pay," the New York Times reported in a piece on the deal last December, "the retirees would be on the hook."

One would expect a Disney-backed venture to be able to scrounge up payments on an $18 million loan simply by digging around in the couch cushions. But one would be mistaken.

Michigan Motion Pictures Studios, which is being celebrated in the local media for having made the movie, "Oz The Great and Powerful," in Pontiac, has missed its last three payments on $18 million in bond obligations...

According to state officials, the state retirement system has made three payments since February of last year totaling $1.68 million.

This isn't good news for the state's pension fund, which is already underfunded by several billion dollars. It's pretty much guaranteed that the state will never recover the entire $58 million given to Michigan Motion Pictures Studio, either in the form of added revenue or even loan payments, for that matter. And Michigan should know better. According to the study mentioned in the first paragraph, Michigan's return-on-investment sits at $0.11 per subsidy dollar.

In March 2012, Raleigh Studio's then-chief financial officer Steve Lemberg blamed the studio’s financial struggles on the film tax credit being reduced.

The state reduced the tax credit from $100 million when the studio was being built in 2011 to $50 million last year. Gov. Rick Snyder has $25 million budgeted for tax credits this year.

There's something inherently flawed with a business model that relies heavily on being handed free money in exchange for the vague promise that a small percentage of it will be pumped back into the local economy. But I suppose it could be worse. Much, much worse.

The city of Allen Park recently requested an emergency manager after losing what will turn out to be tens of millions of dollars on a failed movie studio project that promised to create 3,000 jobs. It created none and left the town nearly bankrupt.

That's the sort of thing that happens when politicians get stars in their eyes and roll out a red carpet made of constituents' money. The best case scenario is still a money loser, as any economic effects are brief and underwhelming. The worst case scenario is taxpayers are on the hook to bail out their own pension funds or, in the case of Allen Park, their hometown.

from the and-they're-complaining-about-what? dept

If you've been following MPAA boss Chris Dodd ever since the death of SOPA, you'll be aware of his stump speech. He seems to give it every chance he can: "the movie industry is all about jobs, jobs and more jobs." Of course, he lies about the number. He usually trots out his favorite 2.1 million figure, ignoring the fact that the Congressional Research Service showed it's really 374,000 people employed in the movie business.

What isn't mentioned so much (though, it depends on the audience) is the fact that various tax subsidies that different states pay to movie studios means that $1.5 billion in taxpayer money goes straight to Hollywood studios. Perhaps that would be justifiable if it created jobs. But the evidence there is actually lacking. That link involves the NY Times looking closely at Michigan, which not too long ago put in place massive subsidies for Hollywood to make movies in their state. The cost? Suffering Michigan citizens foot the bill. However, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm thought it was worth it because a local movie director wanted more work at home (and because, when she was younger, she had hoped to be a movie star). Lots of studios are looking to make movies in Michigan now, because the cash back from the state is way too lucrative to pass up.

Within two months, 24 movies had signed up to film in Michigan — up from two the entire year before. The productions estimated that they would spend $195 million filming there, and in return they would be refunded about $70 million in cash.

Before long, residents were rushing out on their lunch breaks to catch a glimpse of celebrities like Drew Barrymore, who was filming her movie “Whip It” in Ann Arbor, and Clint Eastwood, who was shooting “Gran Torino” in the Detroit area. Even Michael Moore, who was filming a movie about corporate welfare called “Capitalism: A Love Story,” sought and received incentives.

But does it create jobs? Not really. The story is horrifying. It involves Hollywood hotshots continually demanding more and more subsidies from the state and insisting that jobs would be plentiful as soon as they could get things up and running, but balking any time anyone asked them to put the job promises in a contract:

Ms. Granholm declared the city in a financial crisis in February 2009 and appointed an emergency manager, Fred Leeb. The city’s budget was $54 million a year, but it was overspending by an estimated $7 million to $12 million. Pontiac was also still weighted down by old incentives it had given to businesses like G.M.

The movie studio was an added challenge, since it was seeking financial incentives from the city — not to mention from other branches of the government. It won redevelopment tax credits from the federal government and separate aid from the state that included incentives for technology companies that hire residents.

Job creation became a point of contention with beleaguered Pontiac, which was being asked to waive virtually all property taxes for the studio. The investors claimed that thousands of people would be employed, but Mr. Leeb said that when he asked for job numbers to be written into the contract, the investors refused. “We started seeing some backpedaling,” said Mr. Leeb, who added that the negotiations featured “knock-down, drag-out fights.”

But wanting to bring the big lights of Hollywood to Michigan, eventually the state agreed to it. Who paid for the subsidies? Former state workers basically were forced to bet their pensions on Hollywood:

Over the objections of some local officials, the state agreed to use the state workers’ pension funds to guarantee the bonds. If the investors failed to pay, the retirees would be on the hook.

And the promised jobs? Keep looking. Sure, some crews from LA flew in, but for locals? Almost none.

The studio had created only 200 positions by the summer of 2011, according to correspondence between the company and local officials. And when temporary construction workers were excluded from the tally, Pontiac’s records show, the studio reported only two employees in 2010 and 12 the next year.

Earlier, in the article, they note that this particular project was pushed through with the promise of 3,600 jobs. You don't do that by hiring two people one year and a dozen the next.

How about tax revenue from the local operations? Yeah, big Hollywood studios have ways of avoiding paying that sorta thing, even as they're collecting millions in local subsidies:

The city later had problems collecting some of the taxes because Disney operated through a separate business entity that was difficult to track down, he said.

“This is a glamorous industry if you want to talk about Hollywood, but it’s not very glamorous for the municipality that wants to collect something,” Mr. Schimmel said. Pontiac, he said, was outgunned.

Disney declined to comment.

And... soon after that, the studios moved on to other sexier states that suddenly offering up bigger incentives than Michigan. And who did it cost? Oh yeah: remember those state workers' pensions? Yup. Them.

When the bill for the studio’s bond interest came due in February this year, it paid only a portion, $210,000. The state pension fund had to pick up the remaining $420,000....

In August, the studio defaulted on the entire $630,000 payment on the bond, despite a decision by Mr. Snyder to temporarily allocate some film incentives.

All around, it's a horror story that's being repeated in other states and countries around the globe. Hollywood studios go around pitching "jobs!" and demanding special taxpayer-funded incentives, offering giving them millions to film in a certain location. The filmmakers take the subsidies, bring in crews from LA, hire a couple people here or there... and then move on, leaving a mess in their wake. And this is the industry that is demanding even more protection from the federal government via copyright law? When is enough enough?

from the give-them-to-us-instead dept

While the focus on the cybersecurity debate shifts to the Senate, the supporters of CISPA are still loudly trumpeting that bill's supposed merits. Though the final legislation that will go before the President is undecided, and may not even be based on CISPA in the end, the details of the bill are still very important, as they contribute to the overall shape of the discussion about cybersecurity. As part of the ongoing media campaign, CISPA author Mike Rogers took to the pages of The Detroit News last week to drum up support with a screed that reeks of nationalist fearmongering and utterly misrepresents the scope and purpose of the language in the bill.

The United States, over time, became a global superpower with its hard work and know-how leading to innovations in new manufacturing, health care and information technologies. Now China is trying to use cyber espionage and theft to take a short cut to achieving superpower status.

It began with China stealing hard-copy business plans and sensitive research-and-development information from U.S. and other Western companies when their executives traveled to China. U.S. companies soon began noticing a surge in counterfeit products as their innovations were being stolen, re-engineered, and sold by Chinese companies on global markets.

With the Internet boom, China turned its focus to cyber espionage and began stealing the hard work and innovations of U.S. companies on a far larger scale.

Rogers should be careful—if he says 'China' any more times, Fu Manchu might appear in the mirror and drain his 401(k). Once he's got the reader good and scared of the Yellow Menace (having thrown in a few emotional appeals to hardworking Michigan autoworkers for good measure), he explains how CISPA is needed to take care of all those annoying regulations that limit government power and protect people's privacy:

Unfortunately, American companies are not getting the best protection available.Today, the U.S. government has intelligence information about the threat posed by nation-state actors that could help the American private sector better protect itself. However, we don't currently have a mechanism for allowing the government to share intelligence about cyber threats with the private sector, nor do we have the ability for private sector companies to share information with others in the private sector, and with the government on a voluntary basis, so that the private sector can better protect itself.

And you know what? That's fine. Even though there is a lot of debate about the true scope of foreign cyber threats, if there is a way for the government and the private sector to share anonymous network analysis data in order to improve technological defenses against hacking and malware attacks, it makes sense to legislate a mechanism for them to do so. Unfortunately, CISPA goes way beyond that—now explicitly so.

This goes back to my opinion when CISPA was amended and passed in the House: my initial reaction that it had gotten much worse was partially incorrect, but even though the amendments did technically limit the government's power under the bill, I still had (and have) a problem with the way they expanded the stated intent and purpose. From the very start, CISPA supporters have insisted (as Rogers does in this column) that it's basically all about technical considerations in fighting off foreign cyber attacks. Initially, privacy and civil liberties groups objected that it would allow the government to do much more, including accessing the private data of American citizens without a warrant—and the response was basically "no, no, it has nothing to do with that".

Right up to the last minute of debate before the House vote, CISPA's backers held to the talking points and expounded on the threat from China and the need to share technical network data. But, to appease privacy groups, they supported an amendment to limit the ways the government could use shared data under the bill to a set of explicit purposes. And what were those purposes? Far from just foreign threats, they include investigating domestic cybercrime, investigating domestic violent crime, protecting children from exploitation, and of course the catch-all "national security" that was already in the language.

It feels trite to add the obligatory preventing violence and protecting children is a good thing here, because d'uh, but when exactly did CISPA become a bill about these things? If the government wants new exceptions to privacy laws for the purposes of fighting crime, that's a major discussion with obvious constitutional implications—a discussion that privacy groups have been trying to start all along, but have been brushed off with claims that CISPA is just about rebuffing those devious foreigners. Now CISPA explicitly includes provisions for collecting evidence on domestic crime, but Rogers is still writing editorials like this one that don't mention anything to do with child exploitation, violent crime, or anything else that doesn't have the word China attached to it.

Rogers finishes the piece with a rather astonishing little rallying call:

It took Michigan's auto industry decades to achieve its prominence and the United States centuries to become a global superpower. We cannot let China steal it all away in a few short years.

I'm not sure how long it's been since Rogers visited Flint, but I think it's changed a little since he was last there. Nonetheless, the point is clear: if the government can't snoop your data for child porn and affiliations with Anonymous, the Chinese are going to start manufacturing American cars and destroy the Michigan auto industry, in turn toppling the U.S. as an economic superpower. Wait, did I say "clear"?

from the that-sounds-like-extortion dept

Apparently, the state police in Michigan are using devices that allow them to slurp all sorts of data off your mobile phone. Various courts over the years have taken up the question of whether or not it's okay for police to search your mobile phone during a traffic stop without a warrant, and the rulings are quite mixed. What is allowed is for police to search through your physical belongings, but "digital" belongings is a bit more of a gray area, and it seems to depend on the court. Most recently, the California Supreme Court said that such searches are fine.

The reason many of us are troubled by this is that, like laptops, the contents on your mobile phone are both a lot more expansive these days than, say, a bag you're carrying -- and can be a lot more private. So it's a bit troubling that at least some courts have said there's really no difference between searching a bag that you're holding and the full contents of your mobile phone at a traffic stop.

The situation in Michigan is potentially more troubling, because the police are apparently using technology that lets them gather all sorts of info off your phone quite quickly -- and can even get around some password protections:

A US Department of Justice test of the CelleBrite UFED used by Michigan police found the device could grab all of the photos and video off of an iPhone within one-and-a-half minutes. The device works with 3000 different phone models and can even defeat password protections.

"Complete extraction of existing, hidden, and deleted phone data, including call history, text messages, contacts, images, and geotags," a CelleBrite brochure explains regarding the device's capabilities. "The Physical Analyzer allows visualization of both existing and deleted locations on Google Earth. In addition, location information from GPS devices and image geotags can be mapped on Google Maps."

It's not at all clear if the police in Michigan are using the full extent of these tools, and that's what the ACLU was curious about. So, it filed a Freedom of Information Act request on the matter... and was told that it would cost $544,680 to get that information. That doesn't sound like "freedom" of information, now does it? While the folks over at Techland suggest a Kickstarter project, I think the ACLU is hoping that it can pressure the police into changing their position on this without having to resort to such measures.

Update: The Michigan State Police got in touch (via Twitter, believe it or not) to claim that the story is not accurate. According to them, they only use these devices with a warrant, "or if the person possessing the mobile device gives consent" (which, admittedly, opens up some questions, since under stressful circumstances, faced with a police officer, people may feel pressured to "give consent."). They don't explain the $545k bit, other than to say they've been working with the ACLU to "reduce" the cost.

from the let-me-introduce-you-to-my-friend,-the-first-amendment dept

Romenesko points us to the news of a Michigan state senator, who has proposed a bill that would regulate the press. The bill would require people who want to be considered the press to pay a registration fee and submit writing samples to get registered. Also, you would need to have a journalism degree, three years of experience and a letter of recommendation from someone else in the club of "registered reporters." That old First Amendment makes this one a non-starter, of course. In response to that point, the Senator who proposed it, Bruce Patterson, claims he never expected the bill to pass:

"I mainly just wanted to stimulate discussion," he told me. "I didn't think the bill would be likely to pass, but I thought I'd put it out there and if there was any support from your profession, we'd move forward. Heck, I thought it might be helpful to legitimate journalists," he said.

Indeed, he made some valid points. "There are fewer legitimate reporters who cover the legislature all the time. I see stuff being written by people I never heard of, and I don't know whether they have any credentials.

"You have bloggers and editorial writers who write about what we are doing who never come up here and have no idea what's going on. If I need a plumber, I want one who has credentials and who is licensed by the state."

Of course, that's misleading in the extreme. First of all, it's his opinion as to whether or not there are "legitimate journalists" covering the legislature. Just because he doesn't like a journalist doesn't make him or her illegitimate. As for other regulated professions, such as plumbers, that's a totally different situation (and, of course, there are strong economic arguments for why regulating industries like plumbing are actually bad for consumers as well). Finding someone to fix your sink is not the same thing as reading someone's take on what happened in the news.

It is also important to note that the senator is not proposing preventing anyone who is not a "Michigan Registered Reporter" from writing or broadcasting the news.

"I just thought it might be helpful in terms of helping figure out whose reporting you can trust," he said.
And creating a government sanctioned body, that will almost certainly be highly politicized is the best way to do that? Why not recognize that your constituents aren't idiots, and there are all sorts of methods by which they can figure out whom to trust. If there's really a strong demand for filtering out trustworthy journalists, then let a private organization give journalists a stamp of approval, rather than having the government license journalists. But, the real issue is that trust is fluid. People build up trust through their writing and reporting, and the nice thing about the online world today is that if you report stuff that is consistently inaccurate, others can call you on it and you can lose the trust of people. You don't need the government to step in and help.